Pics of my Otto. He's an industrious little catfish. Whenever I see him in the tank he's busily scrubbing some item in the tank. He's wiped out the last algal holdouts on my driftwood and has been making great progress on the roots of my silk plants. I didn't buy him to clean my tank but it's certainly a nice side benefit.

My crypt seems to be doing well. With the addition of Flourish fertilizer and Flourish Excel for carbon it seems to be perking up.
Today:
Ten Days Ago:

Ur catfish is lovely - how big do those catfish get? And I will be looking into it but is it possible to keep catfish with dwarf puffers? (I've read they're quite anti-social) - just planning my next tank :)

Otto's stay tiny, but I don't think you can keep them with dwarf puffers, the puffer is just too ornery. I'd ask around on the fish board though, I'm not that familiar with puffers.

Good news, my otto is eating prepared algae wafers:

That was my biggest concern since I know a 6 gallon tank isn't going to crank out enough algae to keep up with these guy's prodigious appetites. So he's eating wafers and I can relax now about what's going to happen with him once he finishes the tank, which from the looks of things isn't too far off.

I think I have odd fish. When I go to the pet store I see fish like mine with pieces of vegetable in their tanks chowing down on it as fast as they can. Not my fish. Lettuce, now cucumber, they just want the processed stuff. Last night I gave my main tank a chunk of cucumber, after three hours in the tank, when I went to bed, no one had touched it. I expect when I get home and pull it out I'll find out that no one's touched it today either. My work Eclipse went much the same way. After a two day fast I figured the Rasboras would love to chow down on a piece of cucumber. Nope.

However, finally, after many pieces of lettuce, other greens, and now cucumber, someone finally ate some of their veggies:

I've recently had some losses in my main tank. Apparently my serpaes had some kind of slow acting bug that made it through quarantine. I've also lost two neons recently, though there didn't seem to be anything wrong with them before I found them dead. Given the shrinking serpae school I'm concerned they might be getting ornery.

Anyways, after the losses I've decided to build back some of my stock, specifically non-characins since no one but tetras have been having issues. I set my quarantine tank back up, with sand this time since I'll be dropping corys into QT soon.

However... that's a month in the future. I was in Petsmart and had a moment of weakness. Petsmart is the only place that has red wag platies. I love red wag platies. I bought three female red wag platies. I made sure to get only females, small ones, and none that were visibly showing. There's probably zero chance they're not knocked up but I'm hopeful they'll hold off on giving birth until late in quarantine and I'll be able to move the moms right over into the main tank and let the babies grow out in the QT. At the very least I've got a week or two to get a few more to get some more small plants to help the fry hide if they're born early.

After the platys and maybe platy fry I'll be getting some more cories, 4, and 4 more neons. There could be a couple more serpaes in the future but not until the remaining three have a good two months of good health.

I've recently had some losses in my main tank. Apparently my serpaes had some kind of slow acting bug that made it through quarantine. I've also lost two neons recently, though there didn't seem to be anything wrong with them before I found them dead. Given the shrinking serpae school I'm concerned they might be getting ornery.

Anyways, after the losses I've decided to build back some of my stock, specifically non-characins since no one but tetras have been having issues. I set my quarantine tank back up, with sand this time since I'll be dropping corys into QT soon.